The Skunks

THE SKUNKS
    Once the White House sent out a surfeit of skunks to investigate a big stink in the land.
    Under the administration’s stated policy, big stinks never occurred, but as complaints of “something smells to high heaven here” began to spread and bands of citizens groped through swirling fumes to raise whatever cries for rescue they could still manage, well, something had to be done to demonstrate the administration’s concern and commitment. So out the skunks were sent. 
    Who else was better equipped for a “full-scale, wide-ranging inquiry” into eye-watering evidence of public distress than skunks were? After all, hadn’t they performed as expected in one investigation after another, from rancid fumes reported in Pentagon contracts to FEMA miasmas to ongoing fetors at the FCC, FDA, SEC, DOE, OSHA, and DHS to the telltale odor of mendacity coiling through the Justice Department and the rank incompetence/indifference/insincerity making even plastic plants wilt at the State Department?
    In all cases, the skunks had more than merited the “full confidence” in their abilities expressed by perky administration spokespersons when asked daily about why things were smelling worse and worse. Where others might hold their noses or reach for goggles and gas masks, the skunks invariably reported detecting nothing out of the ordinary or concluded nothing smelled so sweet as precisely what so many complained of as “deep sh*t.” 
    Those who looked for the reeking causes of their discontent might become convinced they’d found them in plain sight, it was explained, but to one with a skunk’s long experience in such matters, claims that something must be done and done soon were clearly alarmist. Everyone should just stop, take a deep breath, and get on with their lives. Even seemingly lethal assaults on the public’s senses did not arise to the level of governmental concern and could come to seem perfectly routine with time, and once routine, barely worth complaining about. One might even grow so used to them as to accept that this was the way things were supposed to smell at the Pentagon, FEMA, the intelligence agencies, the FCC, FDA, SEC, DOE, OSHA, DHS, the Justice Department, and the State Department.
    Little wonder, then, the skunks found themselves called upon so frequently in those days, turning up nearly everywhere with their reassurances that nothing really was amiss. There was only one place they balked at going, in fact, one place where even they felt out of their element.
    “Not a chance,” they replied whenever it was suggested by anyone gasping for breath that they take a sniff around the West Wing, just for the sake of thoroughness. 
    To which the skunks response was a ringing, “What, you think we have a death wish or something?”